Asteroid shock: Why Nuking a killer rock about to hit Earth will make it a ‘shotgun blast’

Efforts are now mounting to bolster our defences from the hundreds of thousands of so-called near-Earth objects (NOEs) orbiting our planet.

Jonathan “Jay” Tate, director of The Spaceguard Centre in Wales, told Express.co.uk many things can be done to protect our home planet.

Nuking asteroids, however, should be the last resort any agency like NASA should ever consider.

Mr Tate said: “Deflection is the way to go, obviously you don’t want to try and destroy it, because you won’t and you’ll turn a bullet into a shotgun blast.

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